Four months into his campaign for President of the United States, Donald Trump signed a letter of intent to pursue a Trump Tower-style building development in Moscow, according to a statement from the then-Trump Organization chief counsel, Michael Cohen.

The proposal would have involved construction of the world’s tallest building in Moscow, according to developers of the project.

The involvement of then-candidate Trump in a proposed Russian skyscraper deal contradicts repeated statements Trump made during the campaign, including telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that his business had “no relationship to Russia whatsoever.”

The disclosure from Cohen, who has described himself as President Trump’s personal lawyer, came as Cohen’s attorney gave congressional investigators scores of documents and emails from the campaign, including several pertaining to the Moscow development idea.

“Certain documents in the production reference a proposal for ‘Trump Tower Moscow,’ which contemplated a private real estate development in Russia,” Cohen’s statement says. “The decision to pursue the proposal initially, and later to abandon it, was unrelated to the Donald J. Trump for President campaign.”

The two are connected only by Donald J. Trump, the sole owner of the Trump Organization and sole focus of the Donald J. Trump for President campaign.

Meanwhile, stand by for stories about Donny’s visit taking resources from rescue and recovery efforts. They will be accurate, as they would be accurate about any president visiting any disaster site this soon. #NoDisasterTourism.

Monday, 28 August 2017

Premium mediocre is the finest bottle of wine at Olive Garden. Premium mediocre is cupcakes and froyo. Premium mediocre is “truffle” oil on anything (no actual truffles are harmed in the making of “truffle” oil), and extra-leg-room seats in Economy. Premium mediocre is cruise ships, artisan pizza, Game of Thrones, and The Bellagio.

Premium mediocre is food that Instagrams better than it tastes.

Premium mediocre is Starbucks’ Italian names for drink sizes, and its original pumpkin spice lattes featuring a staggering absence of pumpkin in the preparation. Actually all the coffee at Starbucks is premium mediocre. I like it anyway.

Premium mediocre is Cost Plus World Market, one of my favorite stores, purveyor of fine imported potato chips in weird flavors and interesting cheap candy from convenience stores around the world.

The best banana, any piece of dragon fruit, fancy lettuce, David Brooks’ idea of a gourmet sandwich.

So asks Rich Lowry on the SecState Tillerson’s dissociation of himself from his boss on the race thing. Which brings to mind what I wrote in May about speculated administration personnel changes:

A shake-up this big, this early would be unprecedented. To repeat it in another six months would be proof that Donny himself is unfit to be president. He would become hostage to his new team. I’m not saying that’s bad, depending on the team.

The departures since then have been too uncoordinated to be called a shake-up—even the dysfunction is chaotic!—but the net result is the same. They indicate Donny’s inability to make things work. The replacements have been hired by the same man, but a man even more desperate after his earlier failures. The firings and hirings hollow out his presidency.

Meanwhile, Lowry also noted that Donny’s made himself hostage to GOP senators as well.

There’s a long and damning list here of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s misdeeds, including wrongful arrests that led to enormous lawsuits. But he was convicted of criminal contempt for ethnic profiling, profiling which privileged public safety over hurt feelings and inconvenience, and that’s what he was pardoned for.

Sunday, 27 August 2017

Removal of a number of statues and other smaller Catholic icons from the campus of San Domenico School in San Anselmo has raised concerns among some parents.

In an email to the school’s board of directors, Dominican Sisters of San Rafael and the head of school, Shannon Fitzpatrick objected to the removal of the statues and other steps the school has taken in an effort to make the school more inclusive.

Hitler tried to get Catholic schools in Germany to remove crucifixes and replace them with pictures of himself. The bishops refused. You can read about it in this book.

After the president trumpeted that the Dow surpassing the 22,000 mark was evidence of America’s resurgent greatness, the Wall Street Journal rather impertinently noted this: Boeing, whose shares have gained 50 percent this year and which accounted for 563 of the more than 2,000 points the Dow had gained this year en route to 22,000, makes about 60 percent of its sales overseas. Boeing has a backlog of orders for 5,705 planes, 75 percent going outside North America. For Apple, the second-biggest contributor (283 points) to this year’s Dow gain at that point, foreign sales are two-thirds of its total sales. Foreign sales are also two-thirds of the sales of McDonald’s, the third-biggest contributor (239 points).

Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute says that in the last 20 years the inflation-adjusted value of U.S. manufacturing output has increased 40 percent even though — actually, partly because — U.S. factory employment decreased 5.1 million jobs (29 percent). Manufacturing’s share of GDP is almost unchanged since 1960. “U.S. manufacturing output was near a record high last year at $1.91 trillion, just slightly below the 2007 level of $1.92 trillion, and will likely reach a new record high later this year.” That record will be reached with about the same level of factory workers (fewer than 12.5 million) as in the early 1940s, when the U.S. population was about 135 million. Increased productivity is the reason there can be quadrupled output from the same number of workers. According to one study, 88 percent of manufacturing job losses are the result of improved productivity, not rapacious Chinese.